


Starlight

by hellostarlight20



Series: Shall We Dance [8]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, More angst, Romance, Smooching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 13:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7223656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a School Reunion and that means secrets are about to come to light</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starlight

They danced in the starlight: he in his tux, she in a flowing her silvery dress that caught the starlight. Rose sighed and leaned her head against the Doctor’s chest, listening to his double heartbeats. His hand covered hers over his right heart and they swayed in time to the TARDIS-provided music. It was little more than slow jazzy instrumentals, but it was perfect.

“I could stay here all night,” Rose sighed.

The Doctor’s lips brushed over the top of her head and she heard the grin in his voice. “Eventually we’ll need to go back inside. Even the TARDIS, fantastic ship that She is, can’t maintain the gravity bubble forever.”

The TARDIS doors stood wide open and they danced just outside them, danced on the stars. Bathed in starlight, the Earthlight brightened the night and Rose never wanted to move from this spot. Their spot, no matter where they actually orbited. Or when. They swayed to the music on a literal bubble of air.

“Hmmm,” Rose hummed and pressed her lips to the backs of his knuckles. “One more song then.”

The Doctor huffed out a laugh. “I wanted to take you to Kienagek.” His voice brushed over her exposed skin and she shivered at the erotic touch between them. “Wanted to take you dancing properly there.”

“I am perfectly happy right here,” Rose insisted and didn’t bother to pull back. She squeezed his hand instead. “Except you’re wearing too many clothes and I love feeling your skin on mine.”

“Rose.” His voice caught and she felt the brightness of his arousal through their touch.

“Tell me you don’t love feeling me around you, Doctor.” Rose paused but admitted, “I can’t get enough of that. Of you. Of your touch. I crave it all the time, like an addiction.”

She purposely kept her head on his chest, but her heart raced. In arousal, in anticipation, in fear. Just a bit, the slightest amount of fear—that he wouldn’t feel the same. But no. She knew his emotions; each time they touched he showed her. 

“It’s all I think about,” he admitted.

He brought their joined hands to her temples and opened himself to him. Let her feel the way his skin itched for hers. His hearts yearned for this contact, the singing touch of their bond. How his mouth watered for her taste and his body for the feel of hers climaxing around his.

Eyes closed, Rose lifted her face to his. His hand fell back to her waist and he kissed her gently, a slight touch of lips to lips. The Doctor’s hand slipped up her waist and trailed along her back to where the gown revealed her skin. His fingers brushed her bare skin in a feather-light touch and Rose shivered.

“Can we drop Jack off with mum and Mickey?” Rose asked and leaned back just enough to see the Doctor’s gaze. “I want to make love to you in our space bubble.”

He kissed her again, that same slow, sweet, unhurried press of his lips to hers. By measures, the Doctor deepened the kiss until Rose wound her arms around his neck and pressed her body as close to his as their clothing allowed.

“I’ll drop him off now,” the Doctor promised, voice ragged.

“Yes,” Rose breathed. “Good.” Her lips met his again. The kiss was hard and sloppy, desperate though they’d kiss a dozen, a hundred times in the months since Bad Wolf and the Game Station and moving their relationship forward.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jack said as if he timed his interruption.

Rose pulled back and blinked at him. He did look sorry, she gave him that. Still, she narrowed her eyes at him and scowled.

Jack held up his mobile. “Mickey called.”

“Little busy here, Jack. Tell Rickey to sod off.” The Doctor, who did not care whether Jack stood there or not, kissed down her neck. Rose shivered and wondered when he became so amorous in front of others.

_Only with you, Rose Tyler. And Jack can sod off, too, for all I care._

She smiled, a soft upturn of her lips, and tilted her head to allow the Doctor full access to as much skin as he wanted. “What did Mickey want that he had to call you?”

“Trouble at a school,” Jack said and made no move to leave or look away. “Something’s wrong with the children.”

The Doctor stilled and Rose knew Jack led with that because of the children. She didn’t blame him—it got both their attention.

“Where?” The Doctor moved his hand from her bare skin—more’s the pity—to hers and slipped his fingers between hers. A perfect fit as always. He raised her fingers to his lips and led her inside. Rose reluctantly followed.

He closed the doors behind them and shrugged off his tuxedo jacket. Rose took it before he tossed it over the coral or the coat tree in the corner. Partly to put away, since they both needed to change, and partly because it smelled like him.

She was not one to pass up such an opportunity.

Carefully folding it over her arm, she shamelessly brought the collar it to her face and breathed in the Doctor’s scent.

_After all this, Doctor, we’re making love in the starlight._

His head shot up. Even from across the console, she saw his eyes darken. As you wish. 

“Telepathic sex.” Jack shook his head and sighed. “I’m so jealous.”

 ********  
She hugged her mum and Mickey. They knew better than to ask how long it’d been since she last saw them, and she knew better than to offer it. Mere weeks in their time, but Rose didn’t know in hers; it’d been months, longer even. A year? More than as she and the Doctor settled into their new life as lovers and partners.

Rose glanced at the Doctor but he didn’t answer her unasked question. Maybe he didn’t want her to know, either.

Something passed through his eyes, darkened them, darkened his face—there and gone in a heartbeat. She frowned and projected her question across their bond. _What’s wrong? What is it?_

He merely shook his head. Tried to smile, but his lips barely tugged up at the corners.

_You sure?_

_Rose, spend time with Jackie and Mickey._

Frowning, she pulled back from her mum’s enthusiastic hug and allowed Jackie to lead her into the kitchen, chatting away about local gossip, Howard the butcher, Harriet Jones’s Golden Age, and whatever else popped into her head.

“And I told Mickey,” Jackie said and put on the kettle, “I told him he better call you when he started sounding like the Doctor. Prattling on about UFOs and strange test scores.”

“What did you find, Mickey?” the Doctor asked.

Rose took it as a bad sign he called him Mickey, not Rickey.

But then she looked over at her oldest friend and saw him rolling his eyes at her mum. Apparently Jackie’s ‘call the Doctor’ was more to get her home than in concern for UFOs and children’s standardized testing. That did not surprise her, and Rose promised herself she’d visit more often.

In her mum’s timeline at least.

Thirty minutes later, she, the Doctor, Jack, and Mickey were piled in the TARDIS and on their way to the school. 

Thirty minutes after that, she and the Doctor were arguing.

“I’m not dressing as a lunch lady,” Rose insisted. She wrinkled her nose at him but he remained resolute. _That’s worse than working in a shop for the rest of my life._

The forlorn, almost panicky quality she heard in her own telepathic voice did not make her feel any better but it was too late. She already thought it to the Doctor and with their bond, there was no hiding anything.

“Rose.” He took her hand and looked at her seriously. Lowered his voice so neither Mickey nor Jack heard. “There are seven new teachers, four dinner ladies, and a nurse. I can manipulate it so I can be the physics teacher, or chemistry teacher, but I can’t make it so you fit anywhere else. They’re already hiring for lunch ladies.”

“You owe me,” she threatened. “I do this under protest and duress.”

The Doctor snorted and lifted her hand to his lips. The additional touch sent a bolt through her and Rose shivered. “When have I ever made you do anything under duress?”

She only glared at him.

“It’s just for a few days,” he promised, the words soft against her skin. A caress along their bond, her mind, her very soul. “Undercover, nothing more. Certainly not permanent. I’d never do that to you, Rose.”

Rose slowly nodded. I know. _But it’s so close to...it’s even worse than before. It’s the ultimate dead end job and I thought—well I hoped—_

_Rose Tyler, I’d never condemned you to such a mundane life. A life without me._

She laughed, a weak, nearly-accepting sound and he grinned that dorky grin she loved. Rose nodded, a long, slow movement of her head. _I’m never going to be that women. Never again._

Heedless of Jack’s avid gaze and Mickey’s exasperated one, the Doctor kissed her. Behind her, where her friend stood, she vaguely heard them.

“They always like this?” Mickey asked.

“Always,” Jack confirmed. “It’s the telepathic sex. Adds a little something-something.”

Mickey snorted. Said something else. But the Doctor was kissing her and who cared what they said or thought or did? Rose wound her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss.

 ********  
Rose stood alone in the darkened hallway in the darkened, deserted school, in her hoodie and jeans and felt very, very small. A thousand and one words raced through her mind, but not one of them made it to her mouth. She had no idea what to say. Or think. Or feel.

No. She knew what to feel. Hurt. Angry. Her chest tightened and she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe and her heart raced so fast and her stomach twisted in hard, unyielding knots and he stood right there and watched her with those broken eyes and didn’t move to touch her.

Even his mind closed off from hers.

“What?” she tried to say but wasn’t certain the word had any life.

Her mind stretched out in a desperate attempt, a desperately hopeless attempt, to reach his, but the Doctor stood there. He stood there within easy reach and yet so damn far away.

Rose scrambled to speak to him telepathically but couldn’t calm her mind enough, couldn’t calm anything enough for the concentration she needed to do that. Instead she stared at him. Him in his leather jacket and maroon jumper. With his ice blue eyes watching hers as if she hadn’t just learned...

“Sarah Jane Smith,” the other woman repeated.

Rose tore her gaze from the Doctor’s to the woman’s. The confident woman who stood beside the Doctor as if she had a right to. As if she always had. Well, Rose supposed that was true, wasn’t it.

“I used to travel with the Doctor,” Sarah Jane also repeated as if Rose was deliberately obtuse.

Yes, she heard the other woman the first time. It didn’t make the revelation any less shocking. Or hurtful. Rose licked her lips and took a deep breath, still scrambling for words.

“Course he looked different then,” the woman said. The strained, deliberately light tone was obviously an attempt to break the thick tension. But it choked Rose, and if her legs moved, if her feet obeyed her, she’d leave. Turn from this parody of a reunion and run.

“Different?” Rose managed, confused. Lost. And suddenly, frighteningly alone. “What do you mean, different?”

“Yes.” Sarah Jane Smith laughed, a slightly nervous sound that physically hurt Rose. “He was taller then, with wild, curly hair and a big grin.”

Rose shook her head and looked back to the Doctor, unable not to. “I—I don’t—” she shook her head again but it did little good. “I don’t understand.”

There was a lot she didn’t understand. And it hurt to realize no matter how the Doctor opened to her, how they shared a bond—a telepathic bond that brought them even closer—Rose knew very little about him.

“Rose,” the Doctor said but she couldn’t make out his tone.

“I don’t understand,” she repeated in a stronger voice. “What do you mean, you had curly hair? How could you be taller?”

That was not what she wanted to ask. In fact, of all the revelations Sarah Jane Smith’s presence presented, that was probably last.

And then the words tumbled from her mouth.

“What do you mean you traveled with others?” she asked in a surprisingly low and frightfully calm voice. “You said—you said you were alone. Was that a lie? So I wouldn’t leave you?”

“No, Rose—”

“You said there was no one else,” she added, ignoring him. “I very specifically remember you saying _I’m left travelling on my own ‘cos there’s no one else._ ”

“Rose—”

“Um, not to interrupt,” Sarah Jane interrupted. And did she sound a little smug or was that hurt? Confused? Or was Rose projecting her own feelings onto the other woman? “But we do have a mystery to solve.” She eyed Rose and no, Rose couldn’t figure out what the other woman thought. Then again, she was having trouble sorting her own thoughts.

“Mickey.” Rose turned and retraced her steps from where she met the Doctor. And Sarah Jane Smith. “And Jack.”

“Rose,” the Doctor said again. He tried to take her hand, but Rose didn’t want to touch him. Not when he closed himself off so completely from her. Not when she didn’t understand any of what happened in the last ten minutes.

He sighed. “We’re not done discussing this.”

 _You’re damn right we’re not_ , she thought to him but wasn’t certain she was focused enough for him to understand without touching. And she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to touch him. Not right now at least.

 ********  
“Jack!” Rose screamed as the Krillitane-bat thing swooped down and caught him in its talons. “Jack!”

The Doctor caught her round the waist and held her still. “Rose.” He sounded terrified but didn’t release her. Didn’t try and help Jack, and didn’t let her run to her friend.

“Let go!” Rose cried. “They’re killing him.”

“Rose, Rose!” He turned her, using the strength she always admired about him, always loved, to keep her from running to Jack. “Leave him.”

“No!” She cried but already knew it was too late. “No! Jack!”

But the Doctor picked her up and physically carried her across the estate courtyard. Mickey and Sarah Jane already stood inside the TARDIS doors when the Krillitane swooped down and threatened she and the Doctor as they walked from her mum’s flat, Jack—

Jack stayed there and confronted it. He’d yelled at the Doctor to get her into the TARDIS and held it off. And now Jack lay on the ground, bleeding. Dead. She knew it, Rose _knew_ he was dead. She needed—she needed to see him, touch him, comfort him. Herself.

“Let me go!” Rose raged at the Doctor, pounded his chest, kicked his shins, but he never faltered as he lifted her by the waist and carried her to the safety of the TARDIS. Of their home.

In her head she swore she heard the TARDIS’s soothing hum, but couldn’t open her mind enough to grasp it. Nothing about today had gone well. Three days they’d been back on Earth, only a single day at that stupid school and it all came crashing down tonight.

All her hopes and dreams for the future, her future with the Doctor, lay like shards of glass, lies and half-truths and anger, beneath her bare feet.

He set her just inside the doors where Mickey grabbed her, banded his arms round her shoulders and waist to keep her from running to Jack. _Jack._ The Doctor looked at her, his ice-blue eyes unreadable and so ancient. Rose never shied from that look, from his anger or rage or heartbreak. Now all she could do was silently return his stare.

Condemn him for—for what? Keeping her safe? Not helping Jack? She didn’t know.

He didn’t offer her comfort, didn’t allow his mind to brush hers as it so often had since bonding. Rose wanted to reach out and feel him, feel that spark of him deep within her mind, settling bright and alive in her soul. She did not.

Then he turned and stood just outside the doors and glared at the creature.

“That’s not the way to earn my mercy,” he said clearly into the night. He didn’t shout, he didn’t order or command or scream. He merely stood there, tall and rigid against the threat. “It’s not the way to earn my help. You’ve made an enemy you shouldn’t have.”

The Krillitane screeched and flew off. It didn’t stop or look back.

Finally he stepped out of the way. He didn’t look at her, didn’t try to touch her. Not that Rose knew what she’d do if he did. She didn’t know anything at the moment. Mickey released her and she raced to Jack’s side.

Sobbing, she knelt beside him and took his hand. “Jack,” she whispered. Rose brushed his hair off his forehead for no other reason than to touch him. She didn’t look at his wounds, his shoulders and torso, only his face. His dear, beloved face. “Oh, Jack, you shouldn’t have. You should’ve run.”

She felt more than saw the Doctor stand beside her. Felt him hesitate and whatever was left of her heart splintered and cracked. Rose cried harder. For Jack, for her and the Doctor. For all of it.

“Rose.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Rose, stand up. Give him space.”

“What?” she snarled. “Space? Doctor, Jack _died_. He _died_ protecting us.” Her breath hitched. “Me. He died protecting me.” The words barely left her throat in a whisper of sound as the realization crashed through her.

He half-grimaced, half-frowned and hauled her up. Shocked, stunned, Rose didn’t stop him. Then she whirled and slapped him.

“What do you think—”

Jack gasped for breath. Rose’s heart stopped. In the background, she heard Mickey curse and Sarah Jane make a high-pitched gasp.

In the silence of the courtyard, in the wake of so many revelations today, tonight, Rose stared dumbstruck at Jack. He looked wildly around, and the fact he did so, _could_ do so, seemed to surprise him as much as her.

“Doc,” Jack said, voice hoarse, eyes wild, “What—?”

“Let’s get you inside, Jack.” The Doctor looked at her with such a heartbreaking expression, the knots in Rose’s stomach tightened with dread.

Five minutes later, in their kitchen, the five of them stood in awkward silence. Restless, Rose wanted to pace or run. Get away from this uncomfortable silence, this whole night. Instead she fiddled with her mug, with the hem of her hoodie, anything, and didn’t look at anyone.

Jack had made a slight detour to change his shirt and wash the blood—God, the blood, his blood—off, and now stood with an untouched beer and a shell-shocked expression.

“What happened?” Mickey asked. “I saw Jack—” he broke off and met her gaze. “We all saw Jack. What happened?”

“Rose.”

She jerked and hastily set her mug on the counter. “What?”

“What about her?” Jack demanded and looked from his beer to her then the Doctor.

The Doctor sighed and ran a hand down his face. He crossed his arms over his leather-clad chest. He hadn’t even taken his coat off. Not like he normally did when they—but that didn’t matter anymore, did it?

Was there even a they, a them? 

“What about me?” The words scraped her throat as she spoke them, jagged and painful.

“I died.” Jack looked at his beer bottle as if it held the answers both of the sought. But only the Doctor had those answers, apparently, and he looked up at the man in question. “I died didn’t I? On that Game Station. I remember Daleks—being shot, exterminate. Then...”

Rose shuddered and saw Sarah Jane do the same. But she remained silent, as if she knew she intruded on a private moment. That was catty. Was that catty? Petty? Probably, but adding the other woman to the emotional mix was beyond Rose at the moment.

“I thought I did, I kinda remember it, but then I wasn’t and I thought—I don’t know.” Jack shook his head and looked up at the Doctor. He frowned and the Doctor’s neutral expression, the one she only ever saw when they were in front of strangers before their relationship deepened, hardened.

Never directed at her. Them. Ever.

“Rose happened,” the Doctor said. “She—”

“Rose?” Jack shook his head again. “I thought you sent her back home.”

The Doctor looked at her. “You came back.”

Mickey snorted. “Was desperate to, you were. Jackie got that recovery truck, remember?”

Rose slowly shook her head. “I remember being on Earth.” The words felt sluggish, thick on her tongue. She frowned at the flooring, but didn’t see the mosaic tile. Instead she saw golden light. “There was singing…”

“You opened the Heart of the TARDIS,” the Doctor said quietly. He still hadn’t moved. Hadn’t looked away. “Absorbed the Time Vortex itself.”

“The Heart of the TARDIS? What does that mean?”

Who asked that? Rose looked up, but only saw the Doctor. He may have spoken to Jack, to her, to all of them she supposed, but he looked directly at her. She used to be so good at reading him, even before the telepathic bonding and the fantastic sex. But he so thoroughly closed himself off—or maybe she did?—Rose was at a loss.

Floundering, she stood in the space between where they used to touch and make love, where their friendship stood strong and solid.

“No one’s ever meant to have that power.” The Doctor cleared his throat and looked like he wanted—her, to touch her, feel her, say something else, but—but no. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t drop his barriers. “If a Time Lord did that, he’d become a god. A vengeful god. But you, Rose.” He sighed and his face—lightened, eased. “You’re…human. So human.”

“I bring life.” The words came from nowhere. Everywhere. “I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here.”

She shivered, trembled. Tried to lick her lips but her mouth was dry. And still that singing permeated her, surrounded her. A beautifully haunting song that was so familiar and so foreign.

“You brought Jack back to life,” the Doctor whispered. “But you couldn’t control it.”

Her gaze swung to Jack and she knew before the Doctor said a word. _The_ words.

“You brought him back forever.”

“Jack.” She breathed the word, horrified. Terrified.

“The final act of the Time War was life.”

“Life?” Rose repeated. “Life?” She tore her gaze from Jack and glared at the Doctor. “I bring life? What did I do? What did—Jack.” Her breath caught and she vaguely heard Mickey pulling Sarah Jane from the room.

Her knees weakened and Rose didn’t bother catching herself as she crumpled to the floor. “I didn’t mean to,” she said. Or tried to. “I’m sorry Jack. I’m so sorry.”

Jack knelt in front of her and she flinched away. “Rosie. Rose look at me.”

Rose shook her head but, heedless of her tears, looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. Or tried to over her sobs. Her pounding heart. Her gasping breaths. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I never meant—I—I—”

“Oh, Rosie.” Jack hugged her, and she let him because her limbs didn’t cooperate and she didn’t know what else to do. So Rose let him hug her, let _him_ comfort _her_.

“I don’t blame you. I don’t. Honest.” Jack murmured, over and over.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Rose didn’t realize she spoke until she heard the words in her own voice. “Doctor,” she said, voice sharp. Daggers of anger and betrayal. He sat against the kitchen counters and Rose wondered when he slid to the floor beside her. “Why didn’t you say anything? It’s been months and months since…since…”

“What was I supposed to say?” the Doctor snapped but it sounded weary not angry. “When you looked into the Heart of the TARDIS, you saw infinity. I barely—you refused to release—Rose.” He shook his head, voice hard but not harsh. Choked on a sob. “I almost lost you.”

“What?” Rose shook her head. “How?”

“You were burning up. The Vortex was running through you, Rose.” He looked up, hands dangling between his knees. He looked—devastated. Terrified. “You refused to release the Vortex, refused to—I was going to take it out of you, take it and all the damage it’d done to your body into me.”

“It would’ve killed you,” she whispered.

The Doctor shrugged. He looked at her, eyes so open and broken, and didn’t care what the Vortex did to him. So long as he saved her. All of a sudden Rose felt him. She felt him in her mind, on her skin, burning in her soul.

His fear. His love for her. All he was for her and because of her and with her.

Jack released her and Rose crawled the short distance to where her love sat. She knelt beside him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. The Doctor let out another choked sob and pulled back.

“You were dying. I had to do something.” And he kissed her. Pressed his lips hard, so hard to hers, hands framing her face, skin on skin and all Rose felt mere moments ago amplified.

“Doctor,” she breathed, at a loss as to what else to say.

“How long?” Jack asked now sitting on the other side of the Doctor.

“How long have I known?” the Doctor asked. “Or how long are you going to live?”

“Either.” Jack shrugged, a tired, careless movement. “Both.”

“Since it happened. Felt it happen.” The Doctor settled her between his legs but didn’t move from Jack. Didn’t turn away from him.

That eased Rose’s heart a little. Eased her guilt only the slightest. At least Jack would have the Doctor. But his touch, the pleasurable burn of it, settled her for the first time since donning the lunch lady garb and even worse—since meeting Sarah Jane.

Wiping her eyes, her cheeks, Rose accepted the handkerchief from the Doctor and blew her nose, tried to clean up her mascara. Then she settled back against his chest and let his double heartbeat relax her shoulders.

“You’re a fixed point, Jack.” He continued after several moments of tense silence. “You don’t move with time, you stand on your own and time is forced to flow around you.”

“Why didn’t you leave me?” His voice was small, not the normal bombastic tone she knew and loved, but the man beneath she only caught a glimpse of when they celebrated his Naming Day.

“Thought about it.”

Rose gasped and turned to face both Jack and the Doctor. “What?”

The Doctor shrugged. “It hurts; you physically grate on my Time Sense. Like a low-level headache all the time.”

“And the TARDIS?” Rose asked slowly, looking up at the ceiling. “If She’s a time creature, too, what about her?”

“I honestly thought She’d run—take off without me doing a thing and leave Jack. But She didn’t and I’ve no idea why.”

Rose thought she did. Thought maybe some of the TARDIS remained in her. A faint glow, a caress. A song. That song. And Rose thought maybe the TARDIS didn’t want to break up their family, either. But she didn’t say it, didn’t want the silence around the three of them to end.

Eventually Jack asked, “How long?”

The Doctor didn’t answer. But Rose already knew. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about what she’d done. Too late. “Forever,” she whispered.

Slowly, her body aching, her heart so very heavy, Rose turned and looked at Jack. “I brought you back—forever.”

“I’m sorry, Jack,” the Doctor said in a voice that sounded so controlled. Rose knew better. He teetered on the edge as well.

The three of them did.

Three of them. Team TARDIS—her love and her best friend. The three of them, laughing and running through time and space. Rose’s heart stopped then galloped in her chest. Fuck.

“It wasn’t only Jack,” Rose managed through stiff lips. “It wasn’t only Jack I brought back.” She shuddered. The Doctor’s hands flexed on her hips and she looked at him. “Did you know?”

He shook his head, helpless. “I—I suspected. I didn’t know and your tests came back—they all came back just fine. There’s no way to test…to test it.”

“What are you talking about?” Jack demanded.

“I didn’t just bring you back forever,” Rose whispered. “I created myself. The Bad Wolf created—I’m not—” she cleared her throat and tried again. “When I saw all the timelines, when I brought you back, when I refused to let the Doctor take the Vortex energy into himself and—and _kill himself_ ,” she finished through clenched teeth.

She gulped in a shaky breath and realized the Doctor’s fingers held tightly to hers. Rose looked down but couldn’t feel her hands. Couldn’t feel anything. She looked back up at him.

“We’ll talk about different faces and regeneration, later, mister, don’t think we won’t.”

Again, she gulped in air, desperate to refute it, deny it. Knew it was true and wanted to hold onto that so desperately.

“When I brought you back, Jack, I also created myself.” Rose whimpered. “I’m like you.”

“No.” The Doctor’s voice cut through the room like a shot. “You’re not like Jack. You’re not a fixed point, unable to die.”

“How do you know?” Rose demanded, tears blurring her vision again.

He took her face in his hands, brought his lips to hers. “You’re not. I know. I feel you, I feel you so clearly. Every touch, every kiss, every time we make love. You’re not like Jack, my Rose.”

“Then what am I?” she asked in a very small, nearly inaudible voice.

The Doctor brought her close to him and Rose cuddled into his chest. Took the support he offered. Jack reached over and took her hand. Didn’t let go.

“You’re my Rose,” he whispered into her hair and held her tighter. “You’re my life.”

“We’re a right mess, the three of us” Jack said but the joke sounded quiet in the silence. “At least I know who my traveling companions will be a million years in the future.”

He shuddered and Rose tried to smile, but couldn’t. Couldn’t make her lips work, couldn’t find the words, couldn’t do anything but sit in the Doctor’s arms and hold Jack’s hand.

“Think we were still traveling together when we were at the Game Station?” Jack asked.

“I hope so,” Rose said softly, drained. She pulled back to look at the Doctor. Her Doctor. Her love. “I guess I’m really never going to leave you now,” she said, still unsure how she felt about immortality.

Then again, “I did do this to myself,” she whispered. “I wanted this. And the TARDIS wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t wanted it.”

Rose breathed deeply for the first time all day. Maybe this wasn’t ideal, but she wanted to be with the Doctor—forever. Now she had her wish granted with the wave of her hand and the Heart of the TARDIS joining with her.

“It’ll take some time getting used to it,” the Doctor cautioned.

She nodded against his chest. “I seem to have plenty of time,” she joked and felt a little easier. A little calmer. “And,” she added and looked at him, then Jack, then back at the Doctor. “I have the two of you to help me through it.”

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor breathed and kissed her gently on the forehead. “You always have me.”


End file.
